The winner will advance to global competition at Black Hat USA 2026 amid surge in enterprise demand for innovative security solutions
As cybersecurity threats evolve at unprecedented speed and enterprise security budgets reach record highs, Black Hat Europe 2025 prepares to host the inaugural Black Hat Startup Spotlight Competition. This dynamic competition gives emerging companies a unique opportunity to pitch their transformative products and solutions directly to industry leaders and engaged live audiences and will highlight the critical role emerging companies play in addressing the industry's most pressing challenges.
The cybersecurity startup ecosystem has become essential for global digital resilience, delivering breakthrough innovations that major technology companies are acquiring to rapidly integrate cutting-edge capabilities. Following rigorous evaluation of technical innovation, market potential, and strategic vision, four exceptional startups have earned finalist positions, reflecting broader industry dynamics where startup-driven security technologies are becoming essential enterprise components.
Finalists include:
Agger Labs: Agger does one thing, and does it well; it stops ransomware. No AI hype, no updates, no signatures, no cloud dependency. Just dead ransomware, even zero-day variants. It runs quietly alongside your existing defences, detecting and killing active encryption processes in milliseconds before damage is done. We're SELabs AAA Certified, too. Agger kills ransomware. Fast.
Glenn Wilkinson, CEO, Agger Labs, shared, "Agger kills ransomware. Fast. No signatures, no updates, no cloud, just dead ransomware (even zero day variants). We're excited to share our approach with the Black Hat community."
Capsule Security: Capsule Security delivers Runtime-First protection and control for AI agents, protecting workloads in the cloud, device-based environments, and inside AI Agent SaaS Platforms. Its runtime platform auto-discovers every agent, maps tool and data permissions, and enforces real-time guardrails that detect and block rogue actions, prompt-injection, poisoning, and other misbehavior before damage occurs. Security teams gain unified agent inventory, remediation for misconfigurations, live behavioral observability for anomaly detection, and continuous evidence for compliance frameworks. With Capsule Security, security leaders unlock AI's upside while preserving governance, trust, and regulatory alignment across global enterprises.
Naor Paz, CEO & Co-Founder, Capsule Security, shared, "AI agents represent the most profound technology shift of our era, yet their power is only as strong as the trust they inspire. Capsule Security gives enterprises real-time visibility and control over agent runtime behavior, so innovation never outruns safety. Being named a Black Hat Europe Startup Spotlight finalist affirms our mission to secure autonomous systems for everyone, and we are excited for this opportunity!"
Geordie AI: Geordie's agent native security platform helps organizations scale innovation safely by enabling real-time agent visibility, risk intelligence, and proactive risk mitigation. Founded in 2025 by cyber and AI experts from Darktrace and Snyk, Geordie's mission is to provide the backbone for safe and scalable adoption of agentic AI in the enterprise. Geordie is backed by leading cybersecurity investor Ten Eleven Ventures and global venture capital firm General Catalyst.
Hanah-Marie Darley, Chief AI Officer and Co-Founder, Geordie AI, shared, "We founded Geordie AI earlier this year to build the first security and governance platform truly architected for agents, moving fast with a world-class team and forward-thinking enterprises. Being selected as a Black Hat Europe Startup Spotlight finalist is a powerful signal of how significant AI agent security has become. We're excited to show how our unique approach to AI agent risk management lets enterprises scale agentic innovation across platforms without unleashing risk."
VulnCheck: VulnCheck is the exploit intelligence company helping the enterprise, global government organizations and cybersecurity vendors respond to new vulnerabilities and emerging threats faster with more context. Trusted by the world's largest organizations, VulnCheck protects hundreds of millions of systems and people worldwide to outpace adversaries with threat intelligence solutions that are purpose-built for machine-level consumption and response actioning at scale. VulnCheck's threat intelligence offerings equip teams with comprehensive, real-time exploit and vulnerability intelligence, first-party attack visibility and essential detections that are autonomously correlated and machine-readable, enabling emerging threat response in software vs human analysis.
Thomas Bain, Chief Marketing Officer, VulnCheck, shared, "The nomination of VulnCheck as a finalist for Black Hat Startup Spotlight is something that our entire company has achieved together, and it's a reminder that great companies are built with talented people who are aligned on the problem we solve for customers and a shared passion for innovation. I'm humbled to represent VulnCheck in the competition, excited to demonstrate our broader value to the global cyber ecosystem and can't wait to be there to soak in the innovation from all finalists competing."
Honorable mention includes:
PrepJam: PrepJam is the interactive cybersecurity exercise tool to take your entire organization from awareness to preparedness. Built by Norwegian innovators at Secure Practice, and battle tested with more than 5,000 organizations in open national exercises to win the EU Digital Skills Award. PrepJam.com launches in 2025 to make cyber resilience simple, collaborative, and actionable for any team. Just press play!
Erlend Andreas Gjære, Co-founder/CEO, Secure Practice, shared, "With PrepJam, we are proud to be highlighted as innovators in a space where business meets resilience. When exercise participants incorporate relevant assets and vulnerabilities themselves, they become co-creators of awareness and preparedness in their team. Since everybody loves a good story, our users love how PrepJam creates learning moments through interactive storytelling. Cybersecurity is a joint effort, and we would like to thank the community for this recognition."
Each finalist will receive one turnkey startup booth at Black Hat Europe 2025, one 25-minute speaking session, and one 30-minute call with an Omdia cybersecurity analyst. Finalists will also exhibit their companies' cutting-edge cybersecurity products and solutions on December 10 and December 11 in the Business Hall, and pitch their organizations' solutions to the judges on December 11 at 4:15 PM.
After all finalists have presented, the competition winner will be announced on-site, and then awarded the invitation to advance to Black Hat USA 2026, where they will represent Black Hat Europe in the Global Startup Spotlight Competition, joining a group of cybersecurity innovators positioned to shape the industry's future.
More information on this competition at Black Hat Europe can be found HERE.
Top Sponsors and Partners of Black Hat Europe 2025 include: